Time Bomb Read online

  Cas climbed back toward the door. She couldn’t count on Frankie to get her out of here. Counting on people just led to disappointment.

  “Ow!” she yelped as she caught her foot on something buried under the rubble, and crashed into the broken tiles and tables in front of her. Pain punched through her arm. She sucked in her breath and went still, hoping it would stop.

  Oh, God.

  Agony flooded her. She shifted to take the pressure off her arm. Her vision swam. The world spun, and as it did, she saw blood. Lots of it, oozing from a jagged tear in her forearm. Somewhere in the distance, she heard Frankie yell over the pounding of her heart, “I can’t open the door!”

  She was going to get her wish, she thought as she grabbed for a splintered desk. She really was going to die.

  12:14 p.m.

  Rashid

  — Chapter 23 —

  RASHID PUT HIS HANDS on wet tile, pushed himself to his feet, and felt around for the hallway door that he’d let go of when the shaking had started for the second time, plunging the bathroom into blackness.

  He gagged at the taste of blood and squinted into the blackness. His heart thundered in his ears, louder and louder blocking out everything else. There was only darkness and terror.

  Wait. Where was his phone?

  He’d had it before the second explosion. Where did it go?

  Rashid felt around for it on the floor, trying not to get cut by broken glass. It had to be there. Please let it be here.

  Rashid’s hand closed over the phone, and he let out a sigh of relief when he hit the button and the screen glowed. The glass was cracked, but when he swiped the screen, it still worked.

  Using the flashlight on the phone to cut through the darkness, Rashid found his bag under the counter, along with everything that had fallen out of it when it had dropped off the sink. He quickly grabbed everything, wiping off the Koran as best he could before shoving it all in his bag. Then, glass crunching beneath his shoes, Rashid crossed to the door and pulled it open.

  There was a wall of debris blocking the opening. There was no way he could get out of this room on his own. He was stuck here. He might die here.

  “Hello?” he yelled. “Are you still there?” Are you still alive? Please still be alive.

  “Damn it!” the voice exploded. “We’re trapped.”

  “Who’s trapped?” Was there more than one person out in the hallway?

  “We are!” the guy yelled. “The stairs just caved in, and now the two of us are both screwed.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rashid said. “There will be another way out.” There had to be. Rashid had to have faith. “Once I get out of this bathroom, the two of us will find it. And I can call for help. I have a phone.”

  “Did you call 911?”

  “I made a call,” he said, careful not to lie. His father always told him lies were a sin against oneself, and he was certain that dozens of people had already reported the explosions at the school. Help would be coming with or without his call. He looked at the debris blocking his exit.

  “I’m going to try to push whatever this is out of the way!” the other guy shouted. “Move back. I don’t want something to fall and hit you when I do this.”

  Rashid stepped back into the darkness and shifted his weight from side to side as he waited for something—anything—to move so he could get out of here. Squatting, Rashid peered at a small gap that was letting in light and saw black shoes on the other side. Rashid heard a grunt as the guy tried to move things out of the doorway.

  The guy swore. “This isn’t working.”

  Rashid went cold. He was never getting out.

  “It’s all too heavy to move, but I might be able to shift this beam to the side and keep it there long enough for you to crawl through. Wanna try it?”

  Of course he did. “Give me one second.” He shoved his phone into the bag, then crouched down. “Okay. I am ready whenever you are.” He hoped.

  After a couple of seconds of watching the black shoes shuffle and get into position, he heard, “Get ready to move your ass.”

  Rashid held his breath and watched the opening. “Okay,” he called. Each second felt like minutes as he waited for something to happen. Then, finally, there was a scraping sound as the thick beam blocking the opening moved a bit to the side. The gap was an inch bigger. Two. A couple more, and he might be able to fit.

  “I’m not sure how long I’m going to be able to hold this.”

  Rashid could hear the strain in the other boy’s voice and prayed his new friend could hang on just a little longer.

  Another inch. The gap was almost big enough. Almost . . .

  Now. Rashid gave the bag a shove and sent it through the opening, then launched himself through. All summer he had heard from his aunts and cousins and grandmother how he was too skinny. He was glad for that now.

  “Move,” the black-shoed guy said. “Not . . . much longer. Hurry.”

  He did. Rashid rolled onto his back and pulled his legs and feet through the opening just as the slab of debris slammed back down.

  Frankie

  — Chapter 24 —

  “ARE YOU OKAY?” Frankie called.

  “I’m bleeding.”

  “How bad?”

  “If a vampire wandered by, I’d make his day. No effort required.”

  Frankie would have laughed at the joke had he not heard the pain and the tears. The girl still had a sense of humor, but if she was gushing blood, she wasn’t going to be joking around for much longer.

  He looked around for a board or something he could jam into the door to break it open. “Hang in there, Cassandra. I’m going to get to you.” He never lost, and he wasn’t going to start now. “While I’m doing this, you need to find a way to stop the bleeding.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Hang on,” Frankie urged as he wedged a metal bar into the space between the frame and the door and pushed hard.

  Something cracked.

  “I think I’ll sit, but thanks,” she called back.

  Funny. The girl was bleeding and stuck in hell, and still she managed to crack jokes.

  “Elevate the injury if you can,” he said to her as he wiped his hands on his pants to get a better grip on the bar. “They always tell us that in football practice. It slows down the flow of the blood, especially if you can raise it higher than your heart.” Or something like that.

  When she didn’t reply, he yelled, “Cassandra?” Still nothing. His heart sank, and he pressed his ear to the door. He couldn’t have lost her. He didn’t lose. “Cassandra? Are you still there?”

  He heard a muffled “Mhhhuh.”

  “What? Are you okay?”

  “I’m trying to tie a bandage, and I only have one hand. So I can’t talk right now.”

  He let out a sigh of relief and shook his head at his freaking out. “Sorry.” Panicking wasn’t going to help. Cassandra needed him to be the guy everyone saw on the field.

  Come on, Frankie, he could almost hear his father say. Time to show them what you’re made of.

  Frankie positioned the bar a bit higher and pushed on it again.

  Another explosion rocked the building.

  Damn! The building around him groaned and began to shake again. Lockers flew open. Pieces of ceiling snapped and cracked and rained from above.

  “Frankie!” Cas screamed.

  “Take cover!” Frankie yelled as he got clocked on the forehead by a metal bracket. He grabbed hold of an open locker to keep from falling on his ass. He thought he heard other voices calling out. Other shouts for help. Faint. But there.

  More people must have been in the school than he’d thought—and one of them was Tad. Only he didn’t have time to think about that now.

  Coughing at the smoke that was getting thicker and warmer with every passing second, Frankie pulled on the metal bar, urging the door to break free. Wires above him hissed. Water dripped. Finally, something in the door snapped and gave way. He repositioned the
bar again and pressed down with one hand while he tugged on the knob with the other.

  Yes! He stumbled back as the door came unstuck and swung toward him.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” he shouted. Cassandra wasn’t the only one who could make jokes in the middle of this hell.

  And “hell” was the right way to describe the room she’d gotten trapped in. The back corner was gone. Where there should have been a wall, he saw hints of sky and lots of black, billowing smoke. The parts of the wall Frankie could see were buckled and streaked with soot. This part of the school was going up in flames.

  Where was Cassandra? They had to get out of here. “Where are you?” Could she have found another way out without telling him?

  “What took you so long?”

  At least that’s what Frankie thought she said. It was hard to tell in the middle of the snapping, crackling, and popping from all sides. He turned toward the sound of Cassandra’s voice, which was thankfully on the side of the room away from the fire and the missing wall and floor. The girl had been lucky, although he still couldn’t see her.

  “Sorry, I must have misplaced my key,” he said as a hand came out of the rubble and grabbed the top of one of the art-table desks. Cassandra.

  He leaped over an upended chair and raced around the wreckage as the top of her head appeared—dark hair that looked as if it had been sprayed by gray and white paint. And he recognized her. The clarinet girl from earlier today.

  “Funny meeting you again.”

  “Or not so funny,” she quipped back.

  He flashed a smile as he knelt down next to her. Then the smiled faltered. Cas’s olive skin looked like paste, and there was blood everywhere.

  Her hands. All over her shirt. A streak on her forehead and neck. And dark stains were starting to bleed through the binding on her arm. She’d said the cut was bad, but the way she’d joked had made it seem less terrible than what he was looking at now. This was really, really bad.

  “You okay?” he asked, even though he knew she needed a doctor and stitches and a real bandage, and she needed them as soon as possible.

  “I’ve been better.” She coughed. “I’ll be great as soon as we get out of here.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” He held out his hand to help her up. She wrapped her bloodstained fingers around his—they were cold. Everything around them was scorching hot, and her hands were cold.

  He shook off the thought. “Okay, let’s get you up and moving.” And we’d better do it fast.

  12:20 p.m.

  Rashid

  — Chapter 25 —

  “I THOUGHT YOU WERE NEVER getting out of there!” Black Shoes shouted.

  Rashid had too.

  For a second, Rashid couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He just stayed flat on his back, staring up at the wires dangling from the ceiling as his heart thudded.

  Finally, he choked out, “Thank you.”

  “You’re more than welcome, man.” Black Shoes extended his hand to Rashid. “I’m Tad. Now, what do you say we get the hell out of here?”

  Rashid stared at the guy’s face, then looked down at the hand offered to him. Tad Hunter—who for some reason was wearing dress pants and a tux shirt—had just saved him. Football player. Track, too. And he hung with the guys who lived for hurling insults at Rashid whenever he was nearby.

  Towel head.

  Traitor.

  Terr-ab.

  Mosque man.

  He waited for Tad to recognize him and for his hand to drop away. But Tad just stood there waiting. That’s when Rashid remembered. His beard was gone, and without it, Tad didn’t recognize him.

  Slowly Rashid clasped the outstretched hand and let Tad pull him to his feet. Then he leaned down and picked his bag up off the floor, sending bits of dust and wood and tile flying. “Thank you,” he said again. “I wouldn’t have been able to get out of there without your help.”

  “Well, let’s help each other get the rest of the way out,” Tad said. “Dying at school isn’t exactly my idea of a good time.”

  “I can agree with that.” Rashid adjusted the bag on his shoulder and turned to look at what they were facing. There were cracks in the hallway walls, wet floors, and twisted lockers. Wisps of black smoke snaked around a pile of debris at the end of the hall.

  The school was badly damaged but it was still standing. For now.

  Rashid swallowed hard as he spotted a man lying near a partially opened door at the other end of the hallway. There was blood on the floor, and the man wasn’t moving. “Look!” Rashid took a step toward him, and Tad put a hand on his arm and held him back.

  “He’s dead.”

  “He might just be unconscious,” Rashid said, stepping toward the man. “We have to make sure.”

  “I did.” Tad shook his head and turned so he wasn’t looking in that direction. “I checked for a pulse just before I heard you yell. We can’t help him. The only thing we can do is look for a way out of here and save ourselves. When we get out, we can let someone know he’s up here. Okay? Where’s your phone? We should call 911 again and tell them where we are in the building.”

  Rashid pulled his eyes away from the dead man and dug his phone out of his bag. Carefully, he swiped the cracked screen, dialed the number, then put the phone on speaker so Tad could hear.

  “Due to the high volume of calls, our operators are busy and working to get to your call as quickly as possible. If this is not a true emergency, please dial 311.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Tad grabbed the phone.

  Rashid backed away from him. “Everyone in the area must be calling 911.” His father would be the minute he heard about the explosions.

  Tad stared at the phone, then let out a loud breath and nodded. “Okay. Well, then I guess we have to find a way out of this mess ourselves.” Tad stepped over a fallen beam and headed to the left. Rashid considered his options, then followed Tad as the message from the emergency line repeated, accompanied by the sound of running water and the buzz of broken electrical lines overhead.

  After a minute of silence, the message played again.

  “Maybe we should call someone else,” Rashid said.

  “Like who?” Tad kicked at a board and ran a hand over his buzzed hair.

  “Actually,” Rashid said, “I was thinking we could call someone near a television.” Tad looked at Rashid as if he had lost his mind, and Rashid quickly explained, “There will be television cameras outside. No one at my house will be watching television, but if we can call someone who is watching the news, they can tell us what parts of the school have been damaged and what looks to be the safest way out.”

  Tad flashed a grin. “That’s smart. My mom was home when I left. I can call her.” Tad’s finger hovered over the screen.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m trying to remember the number.”

  Rashid stared at him. “You don’t know your mother’s phone number?”

  “It’s stored in my phone, so I don’t normally have to think about it. Just give me a second.” Tad took a deep breath, and Rashid clenched his fists and waited. Finally Tad nodded. “Okay, I think I remember it.” He punched in a number, then hit the speaker button.

  “Hello?” a woman demanded on the other end. “Who is this?”

  “Mom?” Tad yelled.

  “Tad? Oh, thank God.”

  “Mom, I need you to—”

  “Sam.” Tad’s mother’s voice was muffled. “Your brother’s on the phone. He’s fine. Just like I told you he would be.” Her voice got louder as she asked, “Tad, where are you? Did you hear about the school?”

  “Mom—”

  “So far two bombs have gone off, and when you didn’t answer your phone, Sam thought—”

  Two bombs.

  “Mom. Mom. Stop.” In a slow, very clear voice, Tad said, “A friend and I are trapped on the second floor of the school.”

  Tad’s mother gasped and made a choked noise.
/>   Tad’s jaw clenched. “We tried to call 911, but the line is busy, so I need you to look at the TV and tell me where the fire is or where the damage is the worst so we don’t try to get out that way.”

  “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Okay. Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay, Mom. We’re both okay.” Tad looked up and shrugged. Which Rashid understood. No, they weren’t really okay, but there was no point telling her that. Tad’s mother started talking again, but Tad interrupted. “Mom, listen, we’re fine, but we need you to tell us what’s happening here so we can get out. Can you turn on the news and tell us what you see?”

  “Okay. Okay. Just give me a minute to get to the television. Okay.”

  Rashid could almost imagine her bumping into things as she hurried to do as Tad asked. His family didn’t have a television. His father said they were a distraction from the true purpose of life—although Rashid and his sister had noticed that whenever the Nationals were playing a big game, Father always wanted to take the family out to eat in a restaurant with a television. Without a television or radio, Rashid wondered if his family knew what was happening here at the school or if his message had been listened to.

  “Mom?” Tad asked. “Are you there?”

  Water dripped. Something creaked and groaned overhead. Rashid could hear Tad’s mother breathing hard and saying “Oh, my God,” over and over again. Suddenly, a loud but mostly garbled voice floated through the receiver.

  “What’s going on, Mom?” Tad asked.

  “It’s a commercial. I’ll find another channel. Wait, here it is. They’re talking to a teacher who was in the parking lot when the first bomb went off. Tad, they aren’t showing the building. Why aren’t they showing the building? There’s a fire. They said before that there was a fire. They think a terrorist set off the bombs. You have to get out of there.”

  A terrorist.

  “Just keep watching, Mom.” Tad looked at Rashid, who nodded. “It’ll be okay. Right now, we’re okay and you’re going to help keep us that way.”